We're What They Write About
by Talk Out Loud
Summary: Sirius thinks about happy endings and the inspiration behind them. POA, RLSB, Fluff.


**Disclaimer**: I _wish_.

* * *

Once upon a summer evening in a field overlooking Hogsmeade… 

"You read books, Moony," Sirius begins, staring at the sunset.

"Really? I hadn't noticed. Thank you, Captain Obvious." says Remus, through a laugh.

"Thank you for the cliché reply, Mr. Moony." Sirius gently elbows his companion in the ribs.

"Touché, Mr. Padfoot. You were saying?"

"Moony, I've been thinking. Those happy endings. They've got to happen sometime or another, right? Those authors have got to base it off of _something_, haven't they?"

"Well, I like to think they get inspired by hope. Hope for the future. For love. Humanity and all that." Remus didn't bother to ask where these thoughts were coming from. He knew September was winding down. Questions like this always sprung up around fall.

"Hope…" Sirius echoes quietly before pausing for a few seconds. "Do you think some of them base it off of real life?"

"Maybe some do. I wouldn't be surprised." Remus glances to the man sitting next to him, whose eyes squint slightly at the setting sun. "You seem a little skeptical. You don't think that there are real life happy endings?"

"I'd like to think they're possible, really, but, it just seems so _im_possible." Sirius' gaze drops slightly to the small town below. "How can two people still love each other even though they've lost loved ones and homes and sanity? It's like happy endings only happen once up a time and in magical lands far, far away."

"Oh, I think they're entirely possible." Remus says matter-of-factly, putting his arm around Sirius' waist, gently pulling the other man back into his arms.

"Even after everything that's happened?" Sirius scoffs at the thought. Remus knows he means the war. Sirius thought often about how life would have been had James and Lily survived the war. He often wondered if Harry would have a brother, or a sister, or maybe even one of each. He pondered on what would have become of the Dark Lord, and of Wormtail. Life without his stint in Azkaban would have been radically different, of course. He thought about what would have become of the Order, Dumbledore, Hogwarts, and many other things. Sometimes his thoughts got so deep that he even wondered if life would have changed for Snivellus as well. Maybe it would have given him a deep cleaning shampoo? The potential differences seemed endless.

Remus, if asked, wouldn't deny that he thought of the same things (okay, maybe not the grooming habits [or lack thereof of Severus Snape, but the other stuff.). Sirius has always been better at vocalizing his thoughts more than Remus.

"Oh, especially, Pads." A few of Remus' fingers snake their way through Sirius' hair, brushing it from his face. "That's what makes the ending so happy, doesn't it?"

"What are you getting at?"

"That through all the pain and suffering, the characters find good. They find a way to be happy. Love and whatnot."

"I guess." Sirius looks down at his fingers, now entwined with Remus'.

"If everything was good all the time, the story would be boring and drab. No one would read it. No one would enjoy it."

Sirius brings his eyes back up to the orange sun, descending further into the purple and pink sky. His thumb gently rubs the contours of a scar on the back of Remus' hand.

"No one would cherish the happiness of the ending." Remus added, after a pause. "Without conflict, it would be too obvious; too easy. The love and happiness at the end would be empty. The love would be blindly unconditional. Untried; untested against the threats of destruction."

After a brief silence, Sirius twists himself to more easily nuzzle his nose into the soft skin of Remus' throat. "Are you happy, Remus?"

Remus can feel a light smile play on Sirius lips as they brush against his skin. "Yes, Sirius, very."

"Me, too."

They sit in a comfortable silence until a handful of stars speckle the sky.

"This must be what they write about, Moony."

"I think you're right, Pads."


End file.
